Holly A. Vandrovec
Overview
Holly Vandrovec provides practical, nuanced counsel to landowners, utilities, oil and gas operators, and related businesses navigating a complex environmental and energy regulatory framework, employing a skill set rooted in diverse public and private sector experience to achieve beneficial resolutions for her clients. She also serves as a mediator, bringing together disparate perspectives to facilitate resolution.
Prior to her return to private practice, Holly served as an Administrative Law Judge for over a decade at the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) in Austin, Texas, and also served as the agency’s Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) team lead. Her in-depth experience presiding over a wide range of complex cases while managing a team of mediators underpins her current practice, in which she works with multiple parties and perspectives to both advocate for clients and successfully mediate cases. Although she maintains a focus on compliance and ADR, Holly also boasts experience assisting litigation teams across several sectors, including complex commercial and oil and gas litigation.
Credentials
Education
- The University of Texas School of Law, 2005 (J.D.)
- The University of Texas at Austin, 2001 (B.A.)
- Successfully mediated multibillion-dollar matter involving a proposed system resiliency plan filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas and referred to SOAH.
- Successfully mediated billion-dollar matter involving a system resiliency cost application addressing discrete severe weather events filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas and referred to SOAH.
- Presided over multiple hearings in cases involving applications to amend certificates of convenience and necessity (CCNs) for transmission lines.
- Negotiated CERCLA Consent Decree with Department of Justice and State of Oklahoma on behalf of alleged arranger in matter implicating petroleum exclusion at Superfund site in Oklahoma.
- Performed waste characterization for chromium processing plant, including in-process materials and application of RCRA recycling exemption and Bevill exclusion for wastes from the extraction, beneficiation, and processing of ores and minerals.
- Negotiated amendment to a consent decree over objection of citizen groups enabling transfer of a coal-fired electric plant under construction and later valued at over $1 billion.
- Performed environmental due diligence for purchaser of a number of kaolin mines in Georgia and South Carolina. Required the purchaser to obtain advanced approval from state environmental agencies before many permits (including Title V permits, NPDES permits, Radioactive Materials Licenses, and mining permits) could be transferred pursuant to the Asset Purchase Agreement. Worked with multiple state agencies to successfully obtain approval and transfer of all permits on a short timeline so the transaction could close.
- Represented group of landowners in negotiating oil and gas leases for over 11,000 acres of land in the Eagle Ford shale and bonus payments totaling over $18 million.
- Meals on Wheels, Volunteer Delivery Group Coordinator
- Texas Super Lawyers, Rising Star, 2008
- State Bar of Texas Administrative and Public Law Section
- Immediate Past Chair, 2022-2023; Chair, 2021-2022; Chair Elect, 2020-2021; Vice Chair, 2019-2020
- Council Member 2018-2019
- Austin Bar Association, Environmental, Natural Resources & Water Law Section
- Membership Committee Chair, 2012-2013
- CLE Coordinator, 2008-2009
- “Mediation at SOAH,” 20th Annual Advanced Texas Administrative Law Seminar, University of Texas Law CLE, September 2025
- “SOAH Update Panel,” 36th Annual Advanced Administrative Law Course, Texas Bar CLE, June 2024
- “SOAH Judges’ Panel,” 34th Annual Advanced Administrative Law Course, Texas Bar CLE, June 2022
- “Judicial Panel,” 16th Annual Advanced Texas Administrative Law Seminar, University of Texas Law CLE, September 2021
- “Environmental Litigation in the Oil Patch,” 28th Annual Litigation Update Institute, Texas Bar CLE and the Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas, January 2012
- “Litigation Trends Involving Environmental Concerns Over Hydraulic Fracturing,” Second Conference on the Law of Shale Plays, The Center for American and International Law’s Institute for Energy Law, September 2011
- “The Fight Over Fracking: Recent Hydraulic Fracturing Litigation in Texas,” Texas Bar Journal, May 2011
- “Environmental Issues Affecting the Oil & Gas Industry,” 24th Annual Oil, Gas & Energy Resources Law Course, State Bar of Texas, October 2006
- “Mineral Processing Wastes: The Bevill is in the Details,” EM: The Magazine for Environmental Managers, August 2006
- “Selected Recent Texas Oil & Gas Legislation and Regulation,” Texas Journal of Oil, Gas & Energy Law, January 2006